What is a NASA Science Update?

Major Hubble discoveries on NASA television ... Astronomers explain their Hubble discoveries at a press conference, called a NASA Science Update (NSU), broadcast on NASA television. The NSU includes a question and answer session with members of the media.

December 12, 2012: Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have uncovered a previously unseen population of seven primitive galaxies that formed more than 13 billion years ago, when the universe was less than 3 percent of its present age.
The deepest images to date from Hubble yield the first
statistically robust sample of galaxies that tells how
abundant they were close to the era when galaxies first
formed. The results show a smooth decline in the number of
galaxies with increasing look-back time to about 450
million years after the big bang. The observations support
the idea that galaxies assembled continuously over time and
also may have provided enough radiation to reheat, or
reionize, the universe a few hundred million years after
the big bang. These pioneering observations blaze a trail
for future exploration of this epoch by NASA's next-generation spacecraft, the James Webb Space Telescope.
Looking deeper into the universe also means peering farther
back in time. The universe is now 13.7 billion years old.
The newly discovered galaxies are seen as they looked 350
million to 600 million years after the big bang. Their
light is just arriving at Earth now.

The public is invited to participate in a "First Census of
Galaxies Near Cosmic Dawn" webinar, in which key
astronomers of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2012 team will discuss how they
obtained their result and what it tells us about galaxy
formation in the very early universe. Participants will be
able to send in questions for the panel of experts to
discuss. The webinar will be broadcast at 1:00 pm EST on
Friday, December 14, 2012.